Stay With Me
by tah-crowley
Summary: Dick gets sick so Nix takes care of him. (Winters/Nixon) Done for the anniversary of my BEAUTIFUL AND MOST WONDERFUL reader of them all, Luiza 3


Dick was ill and Nix didn't know what to do, besides the obvious: to stay beside him and do whatever he tells him to do.

Nix himself had gotten sick a few times before. Because of alcohol or for any other reason. He had gotten sick a couple of times and all of those times it was Dick who took care of him, who caressed his forehead when he thought Lewis was asleep, who gave him pills and water before and after bed, who took him to the bathroom, gave him a bath - if it were necessary.

Now it was Nix's turn to repay the favor and give Dick the comfort he needed to pass through his own misfortune.

He got Dick back to his bed and lay down with him, on the other side, as Dick turned to his side and looked at the alarmclock, pulling a sweaty arm from the side of his body so he could raise the object to his eye line. Nix was just beside him, watching him and he couldn't help but shake his head at Dick's stubbornness:

"You should have seen a doctor…" And this was really a sentence coming out of his mouth; suddenly Lewis Nixon was being more responsible than Dick Winters - although it was even more natural for Dick to be restless and Nix knew it. Nix knew Dick would take his own body seriously only after a really good fight, that is, a terrible and bloody fight.

"Yeah, well, I didn't know it would be that...bad. Jesus." Dick replied, bitterly, turning around so he could accommodate himself to the bed again, but he was soon launched to the bathroom once more. Running desperately, groping at the walls of the barely lightened up hall, illuminated by a lampshade from the bedroom, until he could sink his knees down onto the cold ground and shove his face into the toilet, again.

It was so much more horrible than he had expected. It was just a cold, he had thought. A cold, a little bit annoying but still bearable. Not this.

"Are you sure you don't want to see one, now?" Nix was genuinely concerned, coming in a rush to the doorframe of the toilet. He had never seen his friend like that. He had been in pain before, but not like this. Dick used to be too tough to even let a moan escape his lips and now he was whimpering, rolling on the sheets on his single bed.

Dick was literally throwing up his whole stomach content into that toilet bowl. It was something Nix used to do, not Dick.

"Maybe, tomorrow…" Dick answered, spitting the rest of food trapped around his tongue. He was so weak. But he still didn't want to make Nix drive him to the hospital at that hour. Roe would see it and shout at him too. "Just, please, take me to the…"

However Nix was not gonna take Dick back to bed again. That had been enough. The guy was already with his red hair dark as hot copper because of the sweat. Dick needed a bath, even if Nix would have to drag him under the shower with him.

"What are you doing?" Dick asked, frowning.

"What you'd have done." Nix said simply, dragging the man with him under the shower. He turned on the water and then he felt the water wetting all his clothes. He had had no time to think about himself and now he was covered in water with Dick in his arms.

"You should have at least…"

"Yeah, yeah. Thank you for the input." Nix replied sarcastically, bringing a smirk to Dick's lips.

His legs still trembled and he still felt sick and too heavy and his legs couldn't stay put, but he felt relieved by the cold water. Oh, that felt relieving, he imagined the words, sighing heavily and arching his head back. He tried to hold onto the wall as much as he was able to when Nix started taking off his clothes, starting by pulling down the zipper of his pants.

It could look sensual and sexy any other time...Being truthful to himself, right there, to Dick it felt kind of sensual, even more so because he was almost fainting. His head was so light he could barely pay attention to anything but those fingers fumbling with his strings and then sliding the sweatpants under his hips. Nix's wet, clothed body seemed hot and cold at the same time against his feverish body.

Nix rubbed his nose onto Dick's nape as he took off the pants from the redheads legs and Dick couldn't help but shiver with the sensation of it. They were so suddenly near. They had never been that near. He couldn't recall the day they were supposedly that near. It was just...so different - and not in a bad way. It felt special and endearing even.

Then Nix took his shirt off his head too and there was just Dick: naked as the day he was born. Naked like how he was born, but not a baby anymore, nor against his mom's pelvis or belly. It was Nix around him, a male adult chest against impaired - because of the disease - bare back, warming him up with his long hands, while washing Dick's sweat out.

"Mhm…" Dick hummed and then wept, nibbling his lips. He felt so damn dizzy. If it were another situation, it could be heaven, it would be heaven - not that it was a lot far from that, and he needed to admit it. How weird it sounded like? It probably shouldn't. It was probably just the basic science of how bodies worked when together against each other.

"Are you ok?" Nix murmured slowly, worried. He inclined his head aside to see Dick's face and Dick looked so damn pale, so damn fragile all of a sudden; he wasn't like this. "Please, answer me!" He whispered with more urgency, squeezing Dick by the sides of his waist as lightly as he could so not to hurt him.

Dick nodded, swallowing hard:

"Yeah…" Well, he was as much as he could be in that situation. Alive and awake, still.

Nix, then, opened his jacket and let it go down with the water. It was just making everything too slow and too heavy to bear, wasn't it? Why did he need to do it so slow? Dick was sick, but not that sick. He is just with some kind of kid sickness...

Dick could feel the loose shirt on his back now. His back felt so much that night, as if it was thin and he could take anything inside by some kind of osmosis, but he knew he wasn't with a cold. He didn't have his nose clogged or his throat sore - before the vomit started -, or even had he been coughing or with a runny nose.

He breathed out through his mouth and then he swallowed harder than normally - his throat felt too sore now after using the muscles so roughly through the night. It was such a hard night. He just wanted to sleep it off.

"Bed, next." Nix said, turning off the shower as if he had listened to his thoughts.

Dick took the way back to his room with Nix's help, wrapping his two arms around his abdomen as soon as his knees hit the mattress. Without thinking twice, Dick dropped himself on the bed, still wet.

Nix rolled his eyes but didn't say anything. It was completely understandable. He would have done the same thing if he were in Dick's place.

Taking the towel, Nix wrapped the other man with it. Drying the parts he had the access to and then rolling the other man, as slowly as he could - and by how heavy Dick weighed -, so he could wrap him and dry his other body parts.

Nix took a time taking his own clothes and then, naked he sat beside Dick. The redhead looked damn sick and Nix couldn't help but pursing his lips with worry.  
Dick tried to make fun of it:

"Not gonna die soon."

"Yeah, you better not" Nix said, trying to be as playful but he knew he wasn't able to be like this in that situation. Dick's life was too precious to be made fun of. He needed Dick. He needed him and he knew everybody who knew Dick needed him as well. They couldn't lose Dick.

Dick chuckled huskily, closing his eyes. Would Dick sleep now? Or would he keep throwing up? He hoped Dick would sleep a little bit, at least until the time Nix would have the morning sunlight to drive them up to the hospital.

Nix was pulled out of his head when Dick asked suddenly:

"Gonna stay over?"

And Nix couldn't get why Dick was smiling. Why was he smiling to him? He was sick and in pain. Why was he smiling? Either way, it didn't matter.

"You bet I will. Now go to sleep." Nix answered truthfully and assertive. If Dick thought he would be left alone, he was pretty wrong about that.

Then Dick took his time again, trying to swallow the saliva he still had in his mouth and didn't seem to drop to his throat.

"No, I mean, gonna sleep with me?"

Nix blinked, for a second not understanding at all what that meant. Of course it didn't mean sex - and why in hell did he think about it, even? - but it meant...cuddling? Well, he didn't care, he had slept with Dick a hundred other times. But in those one hundred other times, they had no other choice. They needed to sleep together in order to survive.

"Sure," Nix answered at last, looking around as to find some clothing to use. He wasn't gonna sleep naked with Dick naked, right? That was rude. He loved Dick...and Dick loved him. But not in that way, of course not.

With the time passing, Dick opened his eyes and looked at Nix fiercely.

"Come on, Nix, I already got to know your cock." He chuckled.

And Nix couldn't help but looking like he had been suddenly overcome with a wild and thick hot wave. His lips parted, his eyes wide. But in the end, he crawled anyway to Dick's side and then pulled the sheets and the covers over them.

Nix was not sure if he should cuddle, indeed, with Dick but as he went near, Dick came to him and pushed his back against Nix's bare chest. A hot shock ran down Nix's body but as slowly as he could and as smooth as he could, he wrapped Dick's fevered body with his arms. The muscles of Dick's back slowly relaxed under them and Nix let a breath he didn't know he was holding.

Dick's head inclined a little deeper into the pillow and then Nix knew he was asleep - or at least falling asleep. Finally, he would answer to himself, and then he would relax himself too, although he felt still a little too close to Dick. With the time passing by, he forgot to care when the sleepiness came back and he was the one blinking too much and for too long.

Nix kept watching him until he could not. He was tired too, he had spent the night looking after Dick. Taking him back to bed whenever Dick was too weak to stand and walk to his own room. Now though he felt the tiredness on his shoulders, weighing against his muscles, painfully. His eyes burnt as he stared at the darkness which was Dick's body. He needed to give himself a rest too, if he wanted to drive Dick to the hospital in the morning.

He took the alarm clock and turned it on. He hated the damn thing but it should do now. He needed it to do its work now that Dick was sick and throwing up mostly - if not all - of his stomach content. He sincerely hoped he could take Dick out of that misery just in a couple of minutes, so he could stop worrying and Dick could stop feeling so much pain. He closed his eyes with his arms wrapped around Dick's thin frame and fell asleep immediately.

The next morning, the roles couldn't be more inverted.

"Gosh, I just needed five minutes," Dick whined softly, arranging himself into the car seat. His face expression a grimace of pain, his hand above his pelvis. Dick Winters suddenly seemed exhausted as Lew had just seen during the war.

Still all that complaining - which looked a lot more with his kind of complains - made him laugh and joke:

"Now you are the one begging for it," He said, accusatory. Now Dick was the one complaining that Nix was the one waking him up. That was a really unique experience, to be frank. And Nix couldn't take it without at least a joke.

"Oh, come on, I slept what? Three hours?" Dick whined again, but lower. He was ashamed as he rubbed his nose against his shoulders, already a little dizzy by the hot air inside the car.

"Actually it was four." Nix pointed out, still joking but growing worried again. Seeing Dick all that small and weak made him feel bad for the world.

He stared at Dick until he started talking again and so Lew deviated his eyes.

"My point is, I need to sleep. Jeez, I am so tired, Lew," Dick said calmly, going to his side with his head and resting his ear to the rest of the seat.

Nix licked his lips, nervously. It was painful to see him like that.

"Calm down, we are just getting there. I'll see a stretcher for you to take the serum."

"I am not that ill, Lew," Dick replied, a little annoyed.

"Yeah, you are. You didn't sleep, or eat, so I think you deserve it."

Dick didn't answer, groaning softly. He knew Nix was right about that. He turned his face to the car window again, it was a cold morning but it felt so good against his stomach which was rebelling inside his belly. At least he had stopped throwing up after a couple of times disgorging all he had inside before they got out of the house. Every time he felt dizzy or too ill, he breathed deeply trying to discourage his stomach to force his throat. He really didn't want to vomit anymore, even more not in Nix's car.

"Do you need a bag?" Nix asked looking at Dick from the corner of his eyes, analyzing Dick's state, worried about his sudden silence.

Dick just shook his head, slowly so he could hold the content of his stomach still. His face still turned to the wide opened window of the passenger seat. He was trying his best to pay attention to the wind and forget the stomach convulsing inside his abdomen, his hand over the belly button tried to somehow smooth the movement of his intestines.

After that, and Dick's silence, Nix turned slowly to the view as he drove. It was a cold day, maybe it would snow after midday or in the beginning of the evening. He just hoped that before then, they would already be back home. Dick didn't seem to have a cold, he looked like he had some stomachache problem, but a cold with Dick's immune system affected was not a good idea at all. Maybe he was just worrying too much, although it had affected him hard, seeing Dick Winters throwing up like that, constantly, during those late hours of the night. Dick used to never have anything and then, suddenly he was throwing up and spending the whole night awake while making repetitive travels to the toilet.

"Are you alright, Dick?"

They had been in silence for a time now and Nix was starting to get anxious again. He usually didn't mind Dick's silence, their shared silence. They were also full of meaning and understanding, but now Dick was alone in his head - that wasn't a first time but it was a first time Nix got to see him sick like this.

Dick took some time to answer. He was so sleepy and that medication was letting him even more sleepy than before. Then he nodded:

"Yeah." He drew a long breath. "Now I am," He barely felt the pain, just the dormancy of sleepiness. He opened one of his eyes a little. "Mhm…" He hummed as he saw Lew drawing a line away from him towards the Emergency entrance. His hand was hovering above his leg towards Lew who had just turned to him "Lew, stay with me." He whined lower when Nix got near enough so they could have small talk "Here's boring by myself." Then Dick took Nix's hand.

Lew went red on the cheeks, while his eyes widened:

"Dick!" he croaked, looking around, knowing they couldn't display this or any kind of affection; men couldn't do it, even when he would more than love to. "We…"

But Dick shushed him as soon as he started, in a low and hoarse tone coming from sleepiness:

"Come on, I am sick...Nobody can blame us." Dick smiled faintly while his eyes were barely opened, his eyelids flickering as he tried to keep himself awake.

"They should've given you a stretcher if they would knock you out," Nix said, looking around for a nurse, not knowing exactly if he wanted to call them, that is, the sunlight entered directly through the room into his eyes from an upper windows and even he himself felt sleepy - because morning -, and even more with that. "Gosh, that's a place which should be full of stretchers." Nix mused, flickering his eyelids as much as Dick, although he was enjoying the sunbath.

Dick snorted, amused, but still looking weak and sick. He felt the sunlight too but not as much as Lew. Either way he was sleepy in being there.

"You'll have to help me out again," Dick cried, "I don't like it,"

"Of course you don't," Nix said, because even though Dick could feel useless and all, at least he would be taken care of, by Lew, the man he loved. "Because you detest being the one pampered and all."

"That's true,"

"But again, you are sick, you need to accept your fate."

Dick snorted again, shaking his head but he kept in silence. Drifting off for a warming dream free off stomachaches and strong smells.

Dick kissed Nix on the cheek when they got home in a wheelchair, just after Nix had helped Dick back on his feet when Lew directed them to the sofa:

"What was that?" Nix asked, deep red. And Dick could just smile a little, red as well from Nix's reaction.

"Well, you helped me out" He answered gingerly.

"Of course I did!" What was that? Dick knew he would, he had and he would always help him whenever he needed it.

"So it's just my award to my hero," Dick chuckled, amused, shrugging. That's no reason why he can't joke about all this.

"So you are the princess now?" Nix arched an eyebrow with a little smirk trying to find space on the corner of his lips.

"Not really," Dick rolled his eyes a little, "Just an unique prince." He shrugged, not really minding.

"Ok" Ok, then. Nix kept stood over his feet, his hands into his pockets. So that meant? That meant he could do more than he had ever expected? Could he even try?

So he kissed Dick, plain and simple. There was no reason to. If anything went wrong, it was just a fairytale thing, a banter they were having.

But then Dick answered, pressing his lips against Nix's. Soft and almost not there, but still there, Dick kissed back although he pulled back as fast as he could:

"Lew!" Dick couldn't help chuckling, "The damn door!"

"I thought you were royal!" Nix said, pushing the door close. He was unnaturally shaking as he had his back to Dick. That was a weird thing, kissing a guy, his best friend of them all. The guy he had liked - loved - for so long.

Still, Dick seemed more ok with it, although he looked as red as the other man.

"Yeah, but still in conflict with other reigns. We have different, unique rules, you know." He rolled his eyes, still trying to keep into the play.

"Ok, then, prince," Nix turned around, looking at Dick as he caressed the knob "Where did we stop?"

"Well, the...kiss? ...Happened, so we are not under the curse anymore. But you still need to marry me." He shrugged as if it weren't going as far as it was going, that Lew was really taking the opportunity to make their feelings clear.

Ok, Nix could not deny anymore that he wasn't amused as hell as he was, having Dick so receptive to his feelings - and his own feelings since he was the one who started (and hadn't stopped them). He walked back to Dick and stood firmly with his legs opened:

"So in your reign, I imagine?" Nix asked.

"Yes."

"It's alright for me," Nix replied, taking a space to himself onto the sofa while pushing Dick to the other side.

"But Nix, I am still sick…" Dick tried to interrupt the kisses, pulling a little back. He was worried for Lew.

"Well, then you can pay me back and take care of my old corpse."

"Don't talk like that," Dick chuckled, letting Nix cover him up with his own body.

"Now let me take care of you a little more…"


End file.
